


The Endless Afterlude

by stressed_depressed_lemon_zest



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Everyone Needs A Hug, Grief/Mourning, Happy Hogan is TRYING, Heavily Mentioned Tony Stark, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's not realllly resolved but, Mentioned Ben Parker, Michelle Jones Is a Good Bro, Morgan exists but isn't mentioned, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Please Kill Me, Post-Endgame, STOP IT NOW, Seagulls - Freeform, Worried May Parker (Spider-Man), grief is not curable, no beta reader we die like men, some of this reads like bad poetry but doesn't ALL poetry, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stressed_depressed_lemon_zest/pseuds/stressed_depressed_lemon_zest
Summary: In the months after Endgame, the world is re-piecing itself back together. Peter's not sure if he can.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The Endless Afterlude

**Author's Note:**

> This is just pure angst lmao sorry. There’s some fun but only like directly in the middle, which also accurately describes me. 
> 
> Thanks for checking this out :)

It’s been a long time since they’ve sat down to eat together. Life has been so hectic these past few months that neither of them ever seem to have the time. That’s not true, though; with the world reeling the way it is, time is all Peter has.

Peter stares listlessly into his untouched food as May rambles about some work-related incident. He tries to listen, he really does, but his head is underwater again. Or, rather, way up in space, where the rocks are red and the stars pulsate more brilliantly than the flickering overhead light. He feels like shit disappointing her with every trivial interjection and half-chuckle, but he can’t seem to break the trance he’s in. 

He thumbs a chip on the plate, a plate he’d dropped a few years ago that Ben had spent a week trying to fix. It takes him a moment to realize May has stopped talking entirely. The silence is permeating, lashing rain against the windowpane an ear-popping filler. He looks up, searing panic at the thought of her getting irritated and leaving, but finds her to be in the same spot, twirling a noodle with her fork. She catches his widened eye and lifts a corner of her lipstick-stained mouth. _You wanna talk now?_

(No, he doesn’t. But thank you for offering.)

After Peter scrubs the dishes, he sneaks off to his room. May catches him with one leg out the window, wrapped up in his suit. 

“Whatcha doing there, spidey?” she lilts.

A breeze sweeps into the room, carrying a few stray droplets with it. “I’m going out.”

She’s disappointed, smile taut yet wavering like someone trying to balance a light switch. “In this weather?” she jokes halfheartedly. 

“Crime... stops for no one.” 

She stares at him like he’s an idiot, which he is, and sighs. “You could have just gone down the stairs, you know.”

Peter nods a bit, legs swinging against the soaked ledge. Something clicks in her head like she knows she won’t be getting through to him. Not tonight. “Be home by 12:00,” she says softly. 

He loses track of time and gets home around 3:00. 

It’s not like anyone is around to bust him anymore.

So he does it again.

And again.

He purchases May a vase of sweet white lilies to make up for it on a whim, though she seemingly hasn’t noticed his ventures. She gives him an exuberant hug, asking about the occasion, calling him her Petey-Pie, and the guilt settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach with the rest of his self-hatred. He thought by now he’d feel better. Be better.

He feels empty.

It’s okay. That’s the way it always goes. ( ~~Grief is endless.~~ ) The physical wounds heal fast enough and the patrols make him feel human again, blood pumping and gears turning. It seems right to help where he can, and make smart remarks he’s always conveniently fresh out of at school. There are overwhelming amounts of people in need. The homeless population has skyrocketed. If only he had more to give, like money, but that’s part of May’s job at Salvation Army. He’ll settle for returning kids their kites and getting punched in the mouth by store robbers. He’s supporting a sapping addiction to those few adrenaline rushes, which he knows is a dangerous path, a familiar one, but it doesn’t stop him from pulling all-nighters just to get a taste of his own blood.

The night of the lilies is different. Peter is sticking to the side of a brick alley wall eating a burrito, chatting nonsensically to Karen with his mask half pulled up. A sharp mixture of water and snow pours down and fills his mouth with the taste of copper pennies. He washes it out between bites of burrito. 

“I’m telling you for the last time, Karen, I won that fight.”

(The skin beneath his suit boasts silvery scars and plummy bruises and he’s waiting them out before he heads back. At least, that’s what he convinced himself is happening. Karen is not impressed.)

_“Peter, they were seagulls. And you are sustaining minor lesions to your sides, chest, and ankles. All of the birds lived. You named two of them.”_

“There were a lot, okay? It was like a little— ehhh what’s the word— posse!”

_“Flock?”_

“Karen, I didn’t ask for your input.” Thoughtful munch. “Sorry, that was mean. But anyway, they were bullying that poor kid, so I had to swoop in and do something. They banged me up I guess but I still got them to leave th…” His voice drowns out when he picks up on a sound in close proximity.

Rubber wheels crunch and hiss on concrete, curb puddles splashing upwards into darkness. Peter perks inquisitively and turns his head, remaining glued to the wall. A blinding pair of headlights slide across his rain-sopped form mere moments later. The suit’s mechanical eyes go wide like a deer’s, but his spidey-sense is flat. He’s not entirely sure what that means, because according to his adjusting eyesight, this car is nice and therefore had to have been seeking him out. 

“Ay, buddy!” Peter puts on a mobster accent. “Can I help you?”  
  
The door opens, rainwater probably spritzing all over the expensive interior. A black dress shoe steps out onto the sidewalk. It narrowly misses a pool. Peter scrutinizes the foot, but his alarm bells are dead silent like a funeral. Or they’re broken. 

“Nice weather we’re gettin’, huh? I can finally start wearing my sleeveless trench coat.”

A head rises, shadowy and burlesque. 

“But the weather’s nothin’ compared to that lovely noggin ya got there, mister. I never woulda— wait— HappY?” His voice goes up a whole octave in horror. 

Happy glowers at him like the cankerous man he is. “Peter,” he greets. Short. Stiff. Very on-brand Happy. The engine continues to run, its hot vapor curling into the atmosphere. The valet(?) maneuvers in front of the door and nudges it closed, maintaining unpleasant eye contact. He has a unique talent for that at all hours, but particularly past 2:00 in the morning. More like 9:00 P.M, given some thought.

The boy squints and resists the bubbling urge to laugh. Happy is easily the last person he expected. A well-dressed criminal, maybe, or a wealthy shark with a vendetta. But Peter can’t even remember the last time he saw Happy in person. 

“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” He gestures with his burrito.

“You tell me, freakazoid.”

“Me? I don’t. Um. Do— do you get vital reports from Karen? I thought that only Tony get— got them.”

“No, I do not get vital reports, nor do I care. Though the fact that you brought that up is mildly concerning and I sort of want a report now. Are you eating a burrito?”

“Yes?”  
  
“Your aunt is worried SICK in your apartment and you’re out here in the FREEZING COLD eating a BURRITO?”

Oh. Ohhh god. Peter curses out loud, tiny and panicked and apologetic. 

“Yeah, save it. Get in the cab.”

Peter doesn’t make a move. It’s like his arms and legs are made of lead. Or perhaps his brain is made of cheese. It’s most likely that one. His eyes widen with a flinch when Happy starts walking, thundering up to the wall like Thor himself.

“Get down here before I swat you down with a giant broom!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Peter scrambles a little higher and a little left.

“THAT IS NOT DOWN!”

“I’m just thinking-!”

“PETER!”

Five minutes later Peter sits on rain-speckled leather, drenched and panting with his mask in his lap. Happy practically shoveled him in, slamming the door behind in a fashion that could’ve decapitated a baby. The man furthers his violent streak by dropping in the driver’s seat like a bomb; the vehicle rocks so badly Peter’s head taps the roof. His heart palpitates with unadulterated terror and regret in sync. 

“Happy, I’m so sorry. I’m getting the seat wet. Can I please just walk home? I’ll let you tail me. You can even run me over a few times, it’s okay, I understand, and my healing factor—”

“Stop talking.”

Peter shuts up, watching the man lean over the steering wheel, fingers pressed to his temples. Peter’s coffee-brown eyes fill with a familiar kind of despair, and he holds himself perfectly still. He concentrates on the rain thrumming the ghostly cold window. His mind is buzzing, lonely like a billboard in a deserted Denny’s parking lot. 

He snaps out of it as Happy’s hands thump dully against the wheel. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Peter asks suspiciously. 

“Okay, I feel better, and I’m ready to take you home. I don’t give a damn about the seats right now. That’s— I only care slightly. You’ll get hypothermia if you walk cause of your immune system or whatever, and I’m not risking you running off.”

 _I won’t get hypothermia. I have a heating feature,_ Peter wants to object, but elects against it. “Thank you,” he says.

“Put on these,” Happy instructs. He throws back a crumpled t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, gray as a cloud. 

“D-did you get these from my room?”

“Yes.”

Peter blinks. “How?”

“Your Aunt thought it would be a good idea in case you were— Wil— Will you just put them on?” Happy waves his hand blindly. Peter flinches away from the swat and does as told. 

They drive and pretend they’re both deaf and mute. Peter watches the streetlights blur by, barely visible through the wash. He’s able to slip out of his sopping suit and into the clean clothes that May had Happy bring. With every stoplight, Peter’s gut twists with knife-like guilt. The kind that makes him feel like throwing up. He hurt her and she thought of him. All she wants in the world is for him to be safe and warm and he’s just too caught up in his head to honor her. To show her some decent respect. It’s disgusting.

“Hey Peter, can I ask you something?” Happy blurts into the thrumming static.

Peter cringes, tousled brown hair sticking up on all ends as he raises his sleepy head from the sill. He meets Happy’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Uh. Yeah, I guess.”

Happy sighs, as if he doesn’t truly want to share. They turn a corner, Peter’s anxiety soaring all the while. 

“Why haven’t I heard from you?”

Oh. The knife in his gut takes another 90-degree angle. “We haven’t talked?” (You’ve missed me?)

“Yeah, we haven’t. Since. You know.” 

Peter nods, trying to think of what to say. 

“It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. I’m sorry,” Happy backtracks. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

Peter closes his eyes. “No. It’s fine. Thank you,” he says, though he’s not sure why. How odd to hear Happy sound so troubled. “It’s not that I haven’t missed you, Happy. It... It wasn’t five years, on my end. I keep forgetting that and I’m sorry. Ev…”

Happy waits quietly for him to finish. 

“Everything’s messed up.”

“Yeah.” Happy exhales again, breath foggy. “You’re right about that.” His grip tightens on the steering wheel.

“I’m not the same,” Peter elaborates. He slides his teeth across his lower lip. It’s chapped from the cold, so the skin breaks easily, and he stops. “Nobody’s the same. Everyone’s so… sad.”

“You think it’s sad now.”

Peter’s eyelashes lower to his cheeks, ducts flooding with saltwater warmer than the cloud-brewed pellets outside. He sniffs like a little kid, and oh, how small he’s felt forever. He hates himself. 

“I meant… you’re right. It’s worse without Tony,” Happy says.

You’re telling him. Peter’s grief is boiling him alive, turning his throat to sandpaper and his vision planet red. The whole earth was thrown off its axis the instant Tony left, caving in on itself and bursting at the seams as it melted into a disastrous supernova. And this time, nobody is sorry for Peter’s loss — the world is sorry for ITS loss. It’s selfish, but he craves some sympathy, or at least to be left alone by Flash about it. He supposedly only knew Tony as his impersonal overseer, and not the guy that helped him build a tiny robot at two in the morning while they were laughing like seals and drunk off espresso. Or the guy that wrapped Peter up in a Jar Jar Binks blanket later that night, when he’d passed out at the workbench from utter exhaustion. 

“Peter?” Happy is staring in the rearview mirror. He must have said something, but it sounded more like the teacher from Charlie Brown, so Peter exaggerates a nod and a ‘yes, sir.’

They pull up by the curb of his apartment. The tires skid through slush. 

Happy twists, adjusting his seatbelt. “Listen, I would’ve offered to get you Taco Bell or something, but you already had a burrito and your aunt’s been waiting for you in there.”

That is, of course, exactly the problem, the dreaded conclusion of the night. Peter makes an unintelligible noise. He hits his head against the window a final time, the anxiety rising in his chest. It must be crushing his rib cage, grinding it into a fine dust. Feeling Happy’s gaze on the back of his neck as he keens rouses another wave. In preparation, he tries to drift to that fuzzy-numb space, the way he normally can, but a sudden weight on his lower leg brings him rushing down to a ringing standstill. 

“Kid.” 

He looks from the offending hand on his knee to Happy’s slightly sweaty face. Peter hasn’t been able to see it clearly in a while. Lines of stress adorn his forehead and mirthless brown eyes, deepened by age and circumstance. Salt and pepper stubbles dash his unruly jaw, unshaven (and rightfully so.) He gives the appearance of weariness and distaste, but Peter finds him warm.

“I’m not really an advice person. Or a… touchy-feely person. But I know how you are and— I wanted to let you know that…” Happy’s voice lowers, from embarrassment or tenderness, making it out to be hushed candlelit secret. “You don’t seem like you’re doing so hot. So… talk about it with somebody, please. Especially May. But if you ever wanna contact me, I’m here.”

Beat. In the past, Peter would tease him for their brief moments like this, and Happy would berate him for yammering. He doesn’t feel anything though. He’s messed up, almost irreversibly, and doesn’t deserve any shed of kindness. He wants to say he’s fine. That Happy caught him on a weird night where seagulls and a robbery were involved. Always with the lying. It would be awesome if his habit wasn’t transparent. He can’t say those things to Happy, who lost just as much as Peter, more than Peter will ever know. Peter’s just selfish.

“Th-thank you,” he pushes out. “I— it means a lot. I’ll definitely start doing that.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for the ride. ‘M sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Save it for her, okay?”

Peter swallows, lower lip begging to be torn between his teeth. He wasn’t aware he had developed that habit until MJ informed him of it during study hall; they were playing some sort of drawing game, and he was disproportionately bad at it. The thought of MJ and the feeling of Happy’s hand, though initially jarring, helps Peter relax, if for only a breath. He juggles the handle roughly, breaking apart the ice that seeped into the cracks.

“Hey.” 

Peter glances up, all puppy dog eyes. 

“No more funny business, Pete.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I have to pick you up like this again—“

“It won’t happen again.” Peter desperately hopes he can hold to that promise. They deserve better.

Happy doesn’t drive away when Peter is on the street, to his disappointment. Not that he was planning on running— he’d already ruined everyone’s night enough— but his limbs feel stiff. He feels parched and sick and blanched from the inside out, swaying on unsteady ground. A police siren sounds, flashing blue and red pirouetting up the walls, turning the flurrying city into a snow cone for a brief ellipsis. He wants to cry a little, but if he cries his eyes will freeze over and he still won’t be able to goddamn move. 

Happy is waiting waiting waiting so Peter moves like the tin-man, pressing on his heel and tripping into the doors in a fluid, awkward motion. Deja vu punches him in the gut. It’s a different building and different day but shouldn’t he be wearing Hello Kitty pajamas? Torn half-apart and thrown out by his childhood hero, wandering and purposeless? 

What time is it?

Peter shuffles up a flight of stairs. The elevator has been broken for over a month, anyway, and he needs more time to ponder what he’s going to tell May. The seventh-floor hallway is daunting, pristine lighting buzzing like unified fruit flies. He can barely bring himself to approach the sea-green plywood of their door. His reflection stares back at him from the brass number engravement, pale and flushed as if he had a fever. He taps hollowly, and immediately braces himself, leaning against the wall with a peculiar sense of terror. There’s movement behind the door; May is on her phone, speaking the way one does when they’re on a deadly timer. She shuts it off in a murmur.

Leaping open, the door stretches out, nearly slamming into Peter’s front. His breath hitches.

“Hello?” May calls after a moment, borderline strident.

“Hell-o,” Peter whimpers from behind the door.

As soon as she lays eyes on him, her clean face pallors up like a lapping pond during a drought. Anger radiates off of her, anger he can smell. It vanishes, however, once the hinges click shut behind him. The apartment looks as though she’d been searching for him in blankets and storage boxes. 

From the kitchen, the lilies smile. 

“Oh my god.”

Peter bites his lip.

“Where were you?” Her face is probably crumpling right now. He doesn’t know how to answer. He feels like crumpling himself, begging for her forgiveness, but he’s also just so tired.

“I…” he begins hoarsely.

May stares with hot, mascara-rubbed eyes. Her irises bore holes into him like she knows exactly where he’s been. She takes the suit from him, and he obliges limply. (She hates him, though, he knows she does.)

“What happened, baby?” she tries, motherly and exasperated. 

“I went patrolling.” He swallows.

“But… you knew today wasn’t a patrol day,” she force-laughs. “And it’s 3:00 A.M.”

He nods and tries to cover up the fact that his mouth feels like wine, red and drier than cotton. The taste is beastly.

“Answer me. Now. You owe me more than three words.”

“I messed up, okay?” Peter says, head spinning to keep up. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t do this to you again and then I did. I’m sorry. I got you the — the flowers and I thought, you’re working late, and I’d be extra careful and Ton—“

“Extra careful?” she echoes. “So what’s this?” She thumbs his sleeve, revealing the welt on his shoulder. It was much worse an hour or so ago, but he can’t tell her that. Some jerk did it to him while he was breaking up a street fight. He was lucky he never got shanked.

“And this,” she points to the scar on his jaw. A seagull’s doing.

“That,” she indicates a line of mottled bruises on the soft flesh of his forearm. He wasn’t aware of those.

“May, I’m okay, I swear,” he attempts.

“This, that, THAT—“ 

“May, stop!” Peter recoils. She backs off but looks on the verge of tears again.

“I wish you were,” she says, more to herself than him. “But I can’t— I don’t know how to make it better. You’ve been through too much and I can’t make it normal.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“No. I— I thought you might’ ve—“ she cuts herself off with a strange noise.

Peter stares hopelessly, unsure of what she’s trying to communicate. She’s doing the light-switch thing again, rosy checks pulled up into a bitter half-smile and eyes squinted with unshed tears, yet Peter can’t decipher it beyond the pounding in his chest. He was out stopping crime when making May cry was illegal in of itself. He kind of feels like getting punched in the face right about now. 

“Petey. You scared the shit out of me,” she says, trembling. 

“I didn’t mean to.”

And suddenly it clicks. The lilies. The weird behavior. The not answering his cell. It would have been perfectly reasonable for her to assume something bad. This night is taking a darker twist than he imagined. He deserves to be grounded for eternity.

“Oh. No. Nonono. May no, I wouldn’t ever— I promise I’m okay. I’m so sorry.”

May doesn’t reply. She inches forward, stifling back sobs and wrapping around him like a warm vice. With some hesitation, he props his head on top of hers, taking in the scent of her peach shampoo. He’d only outgrown her recently, and their embraces often consisted of teasing and poking his ribs, or lying sideways with his head in her lap like a dog. Hugs with May were different; they were pleasant and safe. This one brings a forlorn ache to his ribs. The pieces are all there, but they’re cracked glass. However, a hug is a hug, and he soaks it up like a single ray of sunshine in a black, musty cellar. 

“I’ve lost you so many times,” she says finally.

And she has.

(Tomorrow is a new day.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is incomplete. Um, MJ will be in the next chapter, so that's something to look forward to??


End file.
